“Po-faced was perhaps applied to such people because they react to insalubrious comments with a look of insufficiently disguised distaste, as if suddenly presented with a used chamber pot. The Oxford English Dictionary also suggests it might have been influenced by poker face, which is one of the senses it gives for the word; that is not quite how it is understood today, but it does imply somebody who is trying not to show a reaction to some happening of which they disapprove.”

Vickie,yes I agree it is a strange term indeed.I suppose also that a poker face might be quite a suitable one when confronted by a used chamber pot.

I once saw a curious chamber pot at an exhibition in England, the bottom of which housed a small head depicting Napleon.I think he would have had to remained very po faced indeed when the chamber pot was in use?

A blogger at Turner Classics last year wrote about Joan Blondell and her career as a bunch of precode films were going to be featured. In their research, the blogger found Blondell’s description of herself, being the carbonated bubbles in the soda…I like that self-description. She was one of my grandpa’s favorite actresses.